


Cats of Garreg Mach

by Charle_i5



Category: Fire Emblem, Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Cats, Claude x Sylvain - Freeform, Comfort, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, No Spoilers, One Shot, Pre-Time Skip, Romantic Fluff, Sylvain has issues ™, Sylvain x Claude - Freeform, as a treat, claudevain, just a little
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:47:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23857111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charle_i5/pseuds/Charle_i5
Summary: Sylvain finds a lost kitten during a snowy night in the monastery and Claude insists on helping him take care of it, revealing to the redhead his secret love for cats, upon some other things.
Relationships: Claude von Riegan/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Sylvain Jose Gautier & Claude von Riegan, Sylvain Jose Gautier/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 5
Kudos: 68





	Cats of Garreg Mach

It was a quiet snowy night in the monastery. At about ten pm, Sylvain was just getting back from his night training that Byleth had forced him to take to make up for all the day classes that he had missed, either because he was too busy dealing with the hearts he had broken the day before or secretly too crushed by thoughts of the past to see his classmates and keep up his smooth grin for a whole day.

Garreg Mach was completely devoid of students and most of the lamps had been put out or blown out by the brisk winter wind. All Sylvain could hear were his quick footsteps in the crackling snow, but this sound stopped very suddenly when he spotted a tiny, shivering ginger stain in a corner of an outside hallway. His bad eyesight was preventing him from guessing what exactly that seemingly alive spot of color in the white snow was no matter how much he squinted his eyes, so he tried to get closer.

The sound of his footsteps proceeded, but this time they were a lot slower and the sound of the snow breaking under his weight was fragmented and irregular. With each step that he took, the stain became _clearer_ and it even began to grow two ears, a small tail and ultimately, a panic-stricken look on its face. A kitten. To see all of its details, Sylvain now had his knees in the snow and he had gotten close enough to the small animal that if he stretched his arm in front of him, he could probably touch its soft little head.

There were a lot of cats roaming around Garreg Mach, and Sylvain usually didn't pay much attention to them unless he caught Felix playing with one, which he found profoundly entertaining to watch. But this specific cat, with his small, shivering ginger body was tugging at his heartstrings. He couldn't completely grasp why, but he took pity on him.

He very carefully reached for him with two unsteady hands, one of which was swiftly scrapped. The kitten was obviously too weakened by the cold (and too small in any case) to truly hurt the two strong hands menacingly coming towards him, but he still managed, by pure fear, to cut deep enough into the left one to spill some blood on the snow between them. The sudden stinging cut made Sylvain twitch for a fraction of a second but he didn't back away. Instead, he just stopped moving at all, his arms still stretched halfway between him and the cat. The bloodstain continued to get a bit bigger at every blood drop dribbling down the inside of his palm and soon, it formed a third red spot on the white snow, matching his hair and the kitten's fur.

After a minute had passed, during which only the bloodstain had progressed at all, Sylvain gently whispered, more to himself than to the tiny beast in front of him "Am I really that scary to look at? I won't hurt you, you know."

"Doesn't seem like it believes you, Sylvain."

Sylvain pulled his arm back quickly which caused the kitten to jump back just as fast, and bolted up to his feet. The monastery had been dead quiet until that voice broke the silence, and he couldn't see anyone around. That is until a dark figure started to stand out from the white snow and made its way toward him. He squinted his eyes once again, trying to discern a recognizable face in the figure. After it took a few more steps in his direction, Sylvain could finally recognize a pair of green eyes and some carelessly slicked-back dark hair. It was Claude. Noticing that Sylvain had recognized him, he smirked while waving at him before making his way to him.

"You scared the shit out of me, Claude." Sylvain put his hand to his chest as if to make sure his heart hadn't either exploded or completely stopped from the fright his voice caused him.

Claude's smirk turned into a gentle smile as he saw the kitten, trembling more violently than before. He slowly bent down, his palm in front of the kitten facing up, and waited for it to get closer. Neither him or Sylvain, who was afraid of breaking the silent stillness, moved for about twenty seconds, until the kitten stretched his neck toward Claude's hand and started warily rubbing his soft head on it. Claude took the opportunity and quickly but carefully picked him up from the frigid snow to wrap him up in his cape.

"There you go, little guy! That's better isn't it?" He was looking at the little thing with so much warmth that Sylvain struggled to tear his gaze away from his dark green eyes, slightly curved by a compassionate smile.

Sylvain tried getting closer to pet the kitten, which immediately hissed at him before proceeding to bury his face into Claude's chest. A slight look of disappointment on his face, Sylvain stepped back and looked up at Claude with a grin.

"Didn't know your majesty was so good with cats."

Upon hearing this, Claude twitched a bit, as if he had been caught doing something a bit shameful, but quickly regained his composure.

"I uh...I don't mind them, they make the monastery a bit more lively, y' know."

Sylvain looked down at the kitten practically submerged in the yellow cape, which Claude was holding with infinite care.

"Right...well, we should probably take that one to a warm place, your cape isn't enough to keep him from freezing. I can handle it from now, I'll take him back to my place."

"Oh actually, we should go to my place, I have cat food the-" Claude stopped halfway through his sentence, just as Sylvain stopped halfway through his motion of reaching for the small cat.

"Claude why exactly do you have cat food at your dorm?"

He didn't answer anything. Sylvain however, feeling that he had just uncovered one of the master tactician's secrets, didn't bother to hide his joy, his grin slowly turning into a full-on cheeky smile.

"I knew it! I've seen you looking suspicious in the dorm hallways so many times. Those things that you sometimes have hidden in your cape, I thought they were stolen potions but really, they were cats weren't they? So you feed them? Goddess, Claude, that's so adorable of you."

There was more than just a hint of mockery in Sylvain's tone, which didn't actually offend Claude, though he pretended to be. It worked, apparently, as Sylvain tried to hold back his smile as much as he could, which is to say, not a lot.

"No, but really Claude, that _is_ kind of cute, I have to admit."

Hearing this from Sylvain made it hard for the young heir to keep pretending that he was offended and he could feel a half-smile forming on his lips.

"Are you done? There still _is_ a freezing kitten in my cape."

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry. Lead the way to your cat haven."

After ten minutes of Sylvain teasing Claude by asking him every name of the cats he was currently feeding on a daily basis, which were mostly taken from students or teachers of Garreg Mach, they arrived at his dorm. It was like any other dorms in the monastery, at the exception of the numerous books lying around, all opened at pages that had been frantically written on, and potion flasks, both on his desk and on the floor.

Sylvain knew Claude enough to not be surprised at all upon entering the room. _Yeah, that's about right,_ was all he thought at the sight of the organized mess, until he noticed an assortment of plates on the ground which seemed a bit odd to him until Claude carefully took off his cape to put it in front of one of the plates and the small head of the kitten poked out of it. He then came back to put tiny pieces of fish in one of the plates, that Sylvain recognized as the fish that had been on the lunch menu earlier today.

"So that's why you never finish the dining hall's fish, you always keep it for the cats of the monastery?"

Sylvain was still smiling as he asked the question, but the mockery was practically gone from his voice.

"No one's really in charge of taking care of them and I often notice some who seem either hungry, cold or injured so I take them home and a lot of them return here even after recovering. So... yeah I guess I took it upon myself to take care of these little beasts. I don't consider it to be a chore though, I like having them around, at least when they don't knock over my potions. Makes the place less lonely, you know?"

There was too much genuine warmth in Claude's voice for Sylvain to keep teasing him for it, and instead, he discreetly reached out his hand again to pet the little animal, still comfortably wrapped in the yellow cape as it ate. The feeling of his warm fur and the crackling sound coming from the fire that Claude had started while talking made Sylvain notice how nicely heated it was in the room, and he took off his winter coat. He was sitting on the bed, bent down at the kitten and he had just realized how close his face was to Claude's, who was sitting cross-legged, still gazing at the little thing between them with way more tenderness than Sylvain's heart could handle. Still, he didn't pull back but he did try to break the silence.

"So, what are you going to name this one? I can see that he likes you... more than he likes me at least."

"Well, I do have a certain name in mind..." saying this, Claude turned to Sylvain with an implicit smile, closing the distance between them a little more, enough for the redhead to get flustered.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Sylvain."

"...Yeah?"

"No I mean, Sylvain, that's his name!" He turned back to the kitten "Huh? What do you think little guy?"

"Oh... well I'm flattered but... why exactly would you choose that name out of any other? I mean look at the little thing, he's adorable, I think he deserves a better name honestly."

Claude turned back to Sylvain, but this time with a half-jokingly outraged look on his face.

"I can't believe how oblivious you are to your own charm, Sylvain"

This time, Sylvain didn't just get a little flustered, his face was outright flushed red and he pulled away from the intimate closeness they had been in. He couldn't think of anything better to say than "That's not true", so he didn't say anything, and Claude went on with his explanation.

"Oh come on, have you seen his fur? It's the exact same color as your hair, and that's far from being the only resemblance I see between you two...." Claude marked a pause before continuing, and his face turned a bit grimmer and sincere "...he also seems to like to push away anyone who tries to help, despite being scared of being alone."

Hearing this coming from Claude was like a stab in the guts, excruciatingly painful. Once again, he tried to object but before he could even open his mouth, Claude put his hand on it.

"If you're going to say that I'm lying, at least prepare some arguments, Sylvain."

Sylvain's dismissive expression fell into a sort of powerless one. He was looking down at the little animal with an empty stare, trying to guess what other resemblances Claude might have seen between them. He had given up on trying to object, Claude was right. Far from surprising, but still a scary thought for Sylvain, to be seen by someone. Let alone by _him_.

"He didn't stop _you_ from helping though, did he?"

This wasn't an objection on Sylvain's behalf, but more like a remark, as if he now wanted to know what more Claude had to say.

"I know, and I would hope for you to do the same one day."

If Claude's smile was as tender as one could be, there was also a hint of sadness in it, but which practically vanished at Sylvain's answer.

"I think... I think I would like to do the same as well, Claude. I wish I wasn't so terrified at the thought of being known."

He shivered at the idea of surrendering his charming act of what he thought people wanted him to be, let alone the idea of letting anyone see the most flawed part of him, the part that himself rejected above all.

But the way Claude was smiling at him. That smile was actually reaching his eyes. It was something that Sylvain thought he would never witness, and its sight made some kind of _urge_ grow inside of him. He wanted to get closer, physically yes, but most of all, he wanted to know what could have ever prevented that smile from being a genuine one until now, he wanted to know what he could do to see it more. But really, all he wanted at that moment was to know Claude. It was a selfish thought, to want to know someone without risking being known by them and Sylvain knew that, which is why he wondered at the thought of letting Claude in, despite the fear, even if just for a moment. While lost in thoughts, he brought his hand to Claude's face, without really thinking about it. Actually, he wasn't sure what he was going to do next.

Claude could see in his eyes that Sylvain wanted something that his fear of himself was keeping him from doing, so he helped him. He placed his hand behind Sylvain's head, his fingers intertwined with his red hair, and slowly got closer, to finally press his lips against his. It started as a hesitant and shy kiss but slowly turned into a warm and sincere grasp. After a few seconds, both of them pulled away from the other's lips reluctantly, before locking eyes for a few seconds.

They both stayed like that, in each other's arms on the bed for the rest of the night, finally getting to truly know one another, carefully, gently, and adoringly, through soft-spoken words and a cat purring on Claude's lap.


End file.
